Piracy

Super Mario Run, Nintendo’s eagerly awaited platformer optimized for one-handed gameplay, requires a persistent Internet connection to play in order to prevent piracy, Mario’s creator Shigeru Miyamoto has confirmed to Mashable. Actually, the security element is one of the reasons Nintendo decided to go with the iOS platform first before releasing Super Mario Run on Android.

Even though this particular data point is a few days old now, I think it’s highly relevant in light of Apple’s glowing App Store stats revealed yesterday.

According to developer Ustwo Games, its award-winning and incredibly successful Monument Valley, an atmospheric puzzle game in which you manipulate impossible architecture inspired by the works of M.C. Escher, has seen a significant chunk of its potential revenue lost to piracy because only 40 percent of the $3.99 game installs on the iPhone and iPad were paid for.

The vast chunk of the remaining sixty percent iOS installs were illegitimate, or to put it bluntly — pirated. On Android, the paid install base is a paltry five percent (you read that right), as a huge hunk of the remaining 95 percent of users opted to steal Monument Vally on Android rather than pay four bucks to enjoy it.

Is the 60 percent piracy rate on iOS a worrying number for Monument Valley developers and a bad sign for Apple’s mobile platform? Read on for the full reveal.

A list of 700,000 UDIDs of devices used to install cracked tweaks from a pirate repo have been leaked online a few days ago. The list of leaked UDIDs, which was apparently compiled several months ago, is available as a text file, and a Twitter account was specially created to tweet one UDID every few minutes to somewhat expose the pirates.

Besides trying to shame the pirates by exposing their UDIDs, this move doesn’t represent much risk for the users whose Unique Device Identifier was leaked as it can hardly be tied to any personal information that could identify a user.

The US Department of Justice has long taken issue with large-scale copyright infringement. It’s gone after pirates of various different kinds of content, including music and movies—who could forget the FBI raid on the home of Megaupload’s Kim Dotcom.

But up until now, the DOJ has never gone after mobile app pirates. That changed this week, though, when it filed charges against 4 men behind Android app piracy websites Snappzmarket and Appbucket for conspiracy to commit criminal copyright infringement…

Yesterday, we told you about Tapbots’ entertaining way it deals with folks who pirate its popular Tweetbot app. If you download the Twitter client without paying for it, it will auto-insert an embarrassing phrase into its Tweet sheet.

But the guys on the Tapbots team aren’t the only ones having fun with pirates. Jake Marsh, creator of the new Conditions weather app, also takes a creative approach in dealing with people who steal his work. Check it out…

Remote Messages is a jailbreak tweak that allows users to access full SMS and iMessage functionality on the iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, and iPhone 4S from a desktop browser. It’s a clever utility that allows the iPhone to run as a server, which creates a chat window front-end on desktop browsers. This front-end comes complete with support for profile pictures, attachments, and Emoji icons, as well as for sending and receiving texts. This utility is especially handy if you like to have your phone connected to a stereo away from your desk or if you prefer typing with a full keyboard and screen.

Unfortunately, it seems the $4.99 app is mostly popular with pirates. According to a Reddit thread by the developer, 7 out of 8 installs of Remote Messages are pirated copies…

Installous, the pirate app store that allowed those so inclined to download iOS apps for free may already be long gone, but that hasn’t stopped plenty of people downloading it from the App Store. Or at least, they thought they had.

See, there’s a new Installous in town, and it’s by a developer called Larisa Flora. It’s not the Installous you’re thinking of though – this one’s a game which involves gears and colors, apparently.

What it’s not, is a way of ripping off developers. And people are not happy at all…

In what seems like a small victory against app piracy, the Hackulous team announced today on its site that it is shutting down, bringing down its most popular apps in the process: Installous and AppSync.

Although it’s still unclear what the reasons behind the shut down are, Hackulous claims on its website that it’s mostly due to stagnant forums and the difficulty to moderate them. Although I never hang out in the forums, I find it hard to believe that there was little activity in there, especially given the notoriety of Hackulous in the piracy world…

Back in September, a Chinese court sided with China Publishing House in an infringement lawsuit against Apple, and ordered the iPad-maker to pay about $83,000 in damages. The publisher claimed Apple allowed an application into its App Store that contained large chunks if its Encyclopedia of China works without the proper licensing.

Naturally, Apple is now appealing the decision. And what the court decides from here could have some major consequences for the Cupertino company…

I’m not trying to pile on after my post about i0n1c, but my friend and iOS developer Filippo Bigarella just posted some stunning evidence as to how bad piracy is within the community.

Bigarella is the mind behind such tweaks as Springtomize 2 and CleverPin, and he’s clearly one of the most talented and dedicated developers in the community. Hence, it’s sad to learn that his hard work is taken for granted by so many people. His latest tweak, Springtomize 2, has an audacious 92% piracy rate!

And you wonder why people like i0n1c point to the piracy problem within the community?

App piracy is something which is a real problem for many iOS developers, especially the smaller, independent ones. Things don’t get much easier for the big guys, either.

Rovio, the people behind Angry Birds, also suffer from a spot of piracy, and not just of the app variety, either. All sorts of merchandise is being made and sold in Asia, with Rovio getting nothing by way of monetary compensation. But that doesn’t seem to bother Rovio’s CEO Mikael Hed.